Dependence
by kate221b
Summary: "Which is it to-day," I asked, "morphine or cocaine?" He raised his eyes languidly from the old black-letter volume which he had opened. "It is cocaine," he said, "a seven-per-cent solution. Would you care to try it' - Sign of the Four. Sherlock Holmes thought that the drugs were within his control, a way of managing the problems of his existence. He was wrong.
1. Chapter 1

This is something that I've been working on for a while. Set a few years after The Box, and before ASIP, it's an attempt to fill in some of the gaps in Sherlock's history.

As always please do review and let me know what you think. All comments and suggestions are gratefully received!

Kate221b x

* * *

When he finally regained awareness of his surroundings, he was stumbling along the river bank, some way outside Cambridge. From the position of the sun in the sky, he estimated that it was early afternoon, but despite the warmth of the day the towpath was deserted; its freedom from runners and walkers only proving how far outside the city he must have come. Dimly he remembered the sudden need to get out of his college rooms, the sensation of the walls pressing in on him. Without bothering to stop to clear away the evidence of his morning's activities he had walked out of college down to The Backs, and kept on walking, further and further away from the city

He grimaced slightly as he realised the reality of his situation. He must have walked for several miles beside the river, still under the influence of the drugs. Staggering slightly at times, not fully aware, it would have been only too easy for him to slip and fall into the water. The undercurrent looked strong from the flurries in the water; large rocks jutted up at intervals, ready to deliver a fatal head wound, and the river was swollen from the recent rain. A slip might well have proved fatal. He shrugged. Had he fallen in, then the universe would have deprived itself of one problem at least, and it would have been a tidy way to go. The coroner would have recorded a verdict of accidental death and Mycroft would have tutted and said I told you so, then gone about his ordered life, freed from the burden of his troublesome younger sibling at last.

He squinted a little in the summer sunlight as he considered. Would Mycroft be upset or relieved by his demise he wondered? Perhaps a little of both. Mycroft claimed to despise sentiment and yet Sherlock knew that he was not as cold and detached as he liked to appear. Admittedly exasperation and barely concealed anger were the reactions that Sherlock seemed to provoke in him most frequently, but family was family after all, and since their parents' deaths, he and Mycroft only had each other left.

He was suddenly acutely aware of his thirst. The river water looked invitingly clean and clear, but he was sobering up fast enough to know that either drinking from it, or better still diving into its sparkling depths, was a bad idea. He gave himself a mental shake. Time to find civilisation. he told himself. What he needed was fluid and a place to gather his thoughts. Preferably somewhere that sold something stronger than water, something strong enough to numb the come-down as the drugs wore off. He patted his pockets hopefully, and pulled out a strip of diazepam tablets. He contemplated them for a moment before replacing them with a sigh. His sense of self-preservation told him that taking them would be an ill-advised idea. Later perhaps, when he was in slightly safer surroundings.

He walked for another ten minutes or so along the towpath before houses began to appear in the distance. Following the signs of civilisation, he eventually found himself emerging from a footpath onto the main street of a sleepy looking Fenland village. He was aware that he was attracting some curious looks as he walked along trying to look purposeful, struggling a little to walk in a straight line, concentrating on the need to find some form of sanctuary before he fell apart entirely. He looked dishevelled, he knew. His shirt was sticking to his back in the heat, and he had mud and grass stains on his shirt cuffs and the knees of his trousers where he must have fallen at some point on his travels along the towpath. He added cleaning himself up to his mental list of things to do when he finally found a public house. Still feeling dazed and disconnected, he stopped to drink from a tap placed outside the church, obviously designed mainly for dog walkers to allow their animals to drink, given the water bowl underneath it. This earned him yet more curious glances from a pair of white-haired ladies who had just finished doing the flower-arranging in the church, judging by the iris pollen stains on their hands and the water splashes on the sleeves of their cardigans.

Eventually he came to a public house which looked populated enough to afford him a quiet corner without curiosity, and yet civilised enough to ensure that he would not be disturbed. A quick detour to the gents to clean himself up revealed that he looked almost as bad as he felt, but it took him only a few minutes to wash the mud off his face, finger-comb his hair into some semblance of order, and roll up the sleeves on his shirts to his elbow, to conceal the worst of the stains. About his trousers he could do little more than a quick wipe-down with a wet paper towel, and hope that the dim lighting of the bar would conceal the rest.

He avoided studying his face too closely in the mirror. His face looked hollow; his cheekbones and the dark purple shadows under his eyes telling of too many missed meals and too many nights without sleep. He was out of control, of that he was painfully aware, but he needed a drink before he would be able to consider his situation clearly, without risking descending into a state of panic. The pitiful strip of diazepam he had with him would not be enough to abate a full blown panic attack, not anymore. He stared at himself in the mirror, willing himself into motion, but even so it took several minutes before he finally forced himself to push open the door back into the main bar area.

Making his way to the bar he reminded himself of the need to enunciate his words clearly as he ordered, aware that without care his words would still be slurred from the drugs. Placing himself in shadow, he hoped that the barmaid would fail to notice his constricted pupils, and the slight sheen of sweat on his skin. But then ordinary people, boring people, simply weren't that observant, he had discovered. The bar maid's lurid metallic green eyeliner, and the heel on her shoes made it unlikely that she was an off duty medical student, working to subsidise her student grant, although even he could never be entirely sure. Sometimes people surprised him, even now.

The heels intrigued him. An interesting choice for a job where you were likely to be on your feet all day. Who was she wearing them for, he wondered? A quick glance round as she filled the glass revealed her glance flicking to a man in his mid forties sitting at the end of the bar, fiddling with his mobile phone, and seemingly oblivious to her interest. Ah, case solved. Local businessman by the look of it, married from the state of his tie, at least two small children by the shadows under his eyes and the slump of his shoulders.

He usually enjoyed this game; the observation of the complex and not so complex courtship rituals between his fellow students; the interpretation of body language and speech patterns. He could predict attraction between individuals before they themselves seemed aware of it sometimes, and yet it was a game that he had no interest in participating in himself as anything other than an observer. A complex biology experiment, nothing more.

Turn it off, Sherlock, he told himself firmly, it wasn't the time for this now. He had ordered two double whiskeys, hoping that the barmaid would believe that he had a friend waiting for him, already seated at a table in the bar. He would have asked for the bottle, but he had discovered from bitter experience that that sort of behaviour raised eyebrows, and the last thing that he need was to direct attention towards himself. Alcohol and drugs were a dangerous mix, he knew, but he needed something to take the edge of things, and to help him to overcome the overwhelming desire to call a cab back to his college rooms and smoke his way though the rest of his supply, whatever the consequences. He had benzos in his right front pocket, a wrap of cocaine in the back, but alcohol suited his purposes better for now. It was more drawn out, more controllable, and the last thing that he wanted was to slump unconscious off his bar stool and end up in the back of an ambulance.

The barmaid had a smile for him, and leaned slightly too far over the bar when giving him his change, allowing her an ample view of her curvaceous cleavage. Still open to offers then, not that he was likely to make one. He gave her a slightly flirtatious smile as he picked up his drinks. He might not be interested but he would need more drinks later and it was always good to have the bar staff on side. It was useful sometimes to know how the game worked, even if he chose not to play it.

He carried the drinks through to the snug he had previously identified, and was gratified to find it virtually deserted, the high backed settles providing secluded areas, which screened him well from the main bar - perfect. Only one other table was fully visible from where he sat, and that was currently unoccupied.

Two more double whiskeys and a diazepam later and things had begun to blur distinctly at the edges, numbing the pain of the come down from the heroin, but the problem remained; what to do now?

If he went back to college he would use again, he knew it, he wouldn't be able to stop himself. He needed to get away from here; away from the temptation of the stash in his rooms and the easy supply of more. Technology was a wonderful thing. A brief text and he could get more of less anything that he wanted, delivered to the back of college within the hour. No, he needed to get away from Cambridge, away from temptation.

He picked up his phone and scrolled through the numbers on it rapidly. Phoning Mycroft was the obvious answer. Mycroft would send a car for him, take him home where he could retreat to bed for the weekend as he had so many times before, knowing that he was safe, knowing that he could switch his brain off and finally sleep. But Mycroft would see Sherlock's blood-shot eyes and drawn face and reach his own conclusions. He would know, and Sherlock couldn't bear to see the disapproval and the disappointment on his face. Mycroft would tut and sigh, as if it was no more than he had expected, as if he had just been waiting for his little brother to screw up yet again. And that was more than he could bear at the moment.

Pushing away the blackness that threatened to descend, he forced himself to concentrate on the list of names on his phone. Not Mycroft, so who else? He had a number of contacts on there, but few true friends. Who could he trust? The desire to go back to his room and use again was almost overwhelming. To smoke his entire stash, irrespective of the consequences. Oblivion was very appealing at the moment, and if it was to prove permanent then he could no longer find the energy to care. He was lost, he knew it. But this was not the despair that had taken him to Elmhurst, rather a feeling a being cast adrift, of having stepped outside the boundaries of normal society and normal behavior to such an extent that he had no idea how to claw himself back from here. He was out of control and he didn't like it.

More alcohol was tempting. It would dull the sensation of falling, but much more and he would be incapable of getting himself anywhere. Forcing himself back to the list again, his finger hesitated over one name, a name from his past, still on his phone. Someone who he had always trusted, someone who even now he thought would listen without judging, who would tell him how to move forward from here.

Rapidly, before he had time to think about it, he pressed the button to dial the the number, and then cut off the call before the first ring. Angry with himself for his cowardice, he swore softly under his breath and buried his hands in his curly hair. Not yet. He would sit here a little longer, see if one more whiskey would help his courage and his decision-making. The barmaid came and retrieved his empty glasses, shooting him a curious look, but the scowl that he gave her was enough to dissuade her from conversation. Another drink then, while he worked out where to go from here.


	2. Chapter 2

Returning to her office after a lunchtime meeting, Sarah flicked her phone off silent, checked for texts and frowned. Missed call from - could that possibly be right? It could be a mistake, a chance dialing from his pocket, but that was unlikely with this young man. So careful, so precise - no, if there was a missed call then he must have tried to phone her. Why now after all this time? Her mind raced through a myriad of possibilities, none of them good.

If Sherlock Holmes had tried to phone her then he must be in trouble, one way or the other. She hadn't spoken to him for over a year. They had corresponded for a while. Newsy letters on her side, filled with anecdotes from work and snippets of information that she knew that he would find interesting. Postcards from him, again often containing random pieces of information, more esoteric than hers; about science, about music, occasionally with a brief indication of his well-being. 'More pointless exams passed' or 'Back home for the summer.' As always, she could read more into what he didn't say than what he did say. She read his moods from the neatness of his handwriting, erratic and messy during his ups, careful and beautifully spaced at other times. His lows she read from the weeks or months of silence. At times like these she would often send him a letter of her own, often with the same brief message of her on. 'I'm here, you know. Any time. You just have to pick up the phone.' But he never had, not until now.

Pushing her office door closed, she pressed the redial button and listened as the rings clicked into a default answer phone message. Undeterred she tried again, and this time the phone was picked up on the third ring.

Silence from his end, only the sound of his quiet breathing letting her know that he was there. She could imagine him sitting there, head in hands, wanting to speak but finding himself unable to find the words.

'Hello, stranger,' she said gently. 'How are you?'

She allowed him a few minutes silence before saying, 'Sherlock, it's Sarah. You phoned me, remember? Half an hour ago.'

'So I did,' he replied finally. 'How did you know?'

He sounded dazed, his words slightly slurred. Drunk? She wondered, or worse?

'Missed call on my phone,' she said calmly. 'I was in a meeting, my phone was turned off. So what's happening, are you okay?'

'Sarah?' He sounded lost, unsure. Sherlock was never unsure, not when he was well, as she had come to learn over all those months of caring for him.

'I'm here, Sherlock,' she said calmly, 'Tell me what's going on.'

'I screwed up,' he said quietly, 'and now I don't know what to do.'

She waited for him the explanation that didn't come, and some sixth sense derived from years of working with troubled teenagers made her afraid for him suddenly, conscious of the need to ensure his safety.

'Where are you?' she asked, changing tack.

'I don't know,' he said, and she could hear his relief at being able to concentrate on concrete facts rather than emotion, relieved at least temporarily from the need to explain whatever it was that he was finding so difficult to put into words.

'I walked,' he was saying, 'Along the river.'

'From college? Or are you at home.'

'From college. I couldn't - I had to get out. I walked and I kept walking, and now I don't know where I am.'

'Are you still by the river?' She knew that he wasn't, she could tell from the acoustics that he was in a building, but she needed to get as much information from him as possible.

'In a pub, in a village.' He hesitated slightly, and then sounding slightly ashamed added, 'I don't know where exactly.'

'Thats fine,' Sarah said gently, hiding her concern that Sherlock, who noticed everything, who remembered everything, obviously had no recollection of the route that he had taken. Drugs perhaps? He didn't sound distracted enough to be psychotic. He sounded extremely rational, just - dazed. She wondered exactly how deep this trouble of his went.

'I need you to help me work this out, okay?' she said. 'I need to know where you are.'

'Why?' he whispered, wary now, and sounding more than a little confused.

'So that I can help you, Sherlock,' she said, keeping her voice calm, trying to keep the concern out of it. She didn't want to panic him into hanging up the phone. 'You need to trust me. Do you trust me.'

'Yes,' he whispered.

'Then use that great brain of yours, look around you and see if there's anything that tells you where you are. A menu, a book of matches, anything.'

'Hang on,' he said, and she could hear the rustle of clothing as he got up to investigate. 'The Plough,' he said finally. 'I'm in a pub called The Plough, I don't know where that is though, there's no address,' then with an edge of panic. 'Sarah, don't tell Mycroft, please - just. I couldn't bear it.'

'I need to keep you safe, Sherlock,' she said gently, 'but I promise that I won't tell Mycroft yet, and only if I have to. But I won't lie to you and make promises that I can't keep.'

There was silence for a long time. She wanted more than anything to be able to be there. He sounded so lost, so alone. She wanted to be there with him, to offer what comfort she could, to help work a way through this, whatever 'this' was, but what she needed to do, she knew, was to keep him talking now until she could get him the help he obviously so badly needed.

'Sherlock?' she asked finally, wondering if he had abandoned his phone and walked out of the pub.

'I'm scared, ' he said, hesitantly.

'I can help,' she said, 'let me help. Tell me what's been happening. Have you been drinking?'

He mumbled something in reply, and she realised that she had been right. There was more than alcohol involved here, something that he was ashamed of.

'Sherlock, you can say anything to me, you know that. I'm not hear to judge you, I'm here to help.'

'I screwed up,' came his slightly choked reply. He was struggling not to cry, she realised.

'Its not just alcohol, is it?' she asked. 'You've taken something else. Benzos? What else.'

He was crying in earnest now. She could imagine him sitting there in the pub, his back turned to the room, huddled into a corner, trying not to let anyone see, trying not to attract attention to himself.

'Its okay,' Sarah soothed from the end of the phone. 'its okay, I'm here, I can help you, you're not on your own.'

'I'm out of control,' he whispered, between sobs, 'I can't handle this, I thought that I could, but I can't stop, I can't go back to college, I don't know what to do.'

'You can let me help,' she told him, 'just stay on the phone. Now tell me what you've taken.'

She could tell that he was trying to control himself, trying to get the words out. 'Cocaine? Heroin?' She was deliberately starting at the top of the ladder, assuming that he'd deny it and admit to some lesser class of pharmaceutical agent, but instead he whispered, 'Both, and whatever else I can get my hands on.'

'Do you want to stop?' she asked, realising that she wasn't surprised by this revelation. She had almost been waiting for it. Self-medication in bipolar disorder was common, especially in patients with the severity of illness that he had had. Especially in patients who chose not to take traditional medication. She should have warned him about this. She should have told him of the risk that he took if he tried to control his own neurochemistry on his own. But he was so stubborn, always so stubborn, and he had refused to discuss his non-compliance with medical treatment with her on the one occasion that she had managed to contact him by telephone after he had failed to turn up to his psychiatry appointments at Cambridge. He had been monosyllabic on that occasion, obviously resentful of her interference, and had told her that he hated talking on the phone and preferred letters. He had apologised at the end of the brief conversation though, telling her that he needed to do things his own way and asking her, very politely not to interfere with that. Then, as so often in the past, she had told him that she was there for him, any time. He just had to get in touch. And now he had.

'I need to get away from here,' he told her. 'I need to get my head straight.'

'I can help with that too,' she said calmly. 'Tell me when all of this started.'

As he gradually, hesitantly began to talk, she grabbed a piece of paper, with her spare hand, and holding the phone between her shoulder and her ear, and scribbled a quick note on it, before folding it over, and writing a name on the outside. Then she scribbled a second message of explanation, and as quietly as she could, opened the door to her office, and gave both to one of the junior nurses sitting at the nurses station outside.

The nurse read the explanatory note, nodded and with gratifying speed, took the letter and left the ward to deliver it to its intended recipient.

* * *

For anyone who hasn't read The Box, Sarah is the psychiatric nurse who looked after Sherlock while he was an inpatient at Elmhurst as a teenager. After his discharge from there, Mycroft employed her to look after Sherlock at home for six months. So she knows him well, and I like to think that she's one of the few people that he'd trust enough to go to for help.


	3. Chapter 3

James Harrison was in a meeting when his secretary knocked on the door of the board room. He looked up in surprise; few emergencies seemed to warrant the interruption of meetings these days. It appeared that to the managers at least, it was far more important to talk about cost cutting and service restrictions than to care for the patients themselves; an attitude that James found as bewildering as it was frustrating.

James was relieved for the interruption, but his relief turned to concern as he scanned the note that he had been handed. Strange how some patients never really left your radar, even after you had discharged them from your care. You found yourself thinking about them, wondering how they were getting on, months or even years later. Even after nearly twenty years in psychiatry, he still found it difficult to divorce emotion from his work sometimes; or rather to divorce the personal from the clinical. There were always going to be patients who had touched a raw nerve; who perhaps you had become more involved with than the textbooks would dictate. But then Sherlock Holmes had been very different from the average patient. So very damaged, so very vulnerable, and despite the unorthodox nature of his involvement with him, the extent to which he had gone to ensure his safety and his eventual discharge from Elmhurst, he was one of the patients whose life he felt that he had made the biggest impact on.

When Sherlock had started at Cambridge, James had felt it appropriate to hand over his care to a more local clinician, rather than managing his illness remotely, by telephone from Scotland. When the psychiatrist he had referred him onto told him, at a chance meeting at a conference, that Sherlock had failed to attend any of his recent appointments, he had been forced to suppress a small smile. Of course, Sherlock Holmes was never going to do things the easy way. He was always going to have to test the boundaries, to see how far he could push himself, to see what would happen if he did it his own way.

He had tried to contact Sherlock at college, but with no success. He had been reluctant to phone him at home, unsure of how much Mycroft Holmes knew of his non-compliance, and unwilling to breach Sherlock's confidentiality by raising the alarm. Mycroft Holmes would, he was fairly sure, work out why he was contacting him, and James felt strongly, as he always had, that Sherlock's life should be his own. That his decisions should be his own; that he had had enough choices stolen from him, enough damage inflicted. It was one of the many challenges of his job; the ability to recognise that while you might not agree with a patient's decision, while it might be unwise, provided it was not unsafe then it remained their decision, and you could only support them through it.

In the end Mycroft had contacted him. Sherlock, it seemed, had stopped taking his medication only a couple of months after starting college, as James had deduced. Complete non-compliance then. Mycroft had received a phone call from Sherlock's worried tutor. Sherlock it seemed hadn't turned up at either lectures or tutorials for several days. He had refused to open his door to college staff, indicating with increasingly colourful language that he just wanted to be left alone. Mycroft had driven up to Cambridge to find Sherlock huddled in bed, virtually non-communicative, and had metaphorically scooped him up and brought him home, where he had remained in a similar state for several days. The GP had been called, diagnosed a depressive episode, suggested an admission, which Sherlock had refused, and had reluctantly concluded that as he was drinking and was not overtly suicidal then sectioning him was not an option.

As the closest thing that Sherlock had to a responsible clinician at that time, Mycroft was contacting James directly for advice, and to ask him to resume Sherlock's care, however remotely. After a discussion with the GP, James had to agree. Sherlock was not sectionable, and his symptoms fit well with a depressive episode. Whether he would cycle out of it, or whether the depression would worsen, necessitating an admission, only time would tell. The GP reported that Sherlock had asked for a supply of lorazepam, which he had reluctantly provided, with the provision that Mycroft would administer it to him one or two tablets at a time. Sherlock had told the GP that he needed to sleep and that he thought he would be fine in a few days. James was aware that Sherlock had hit lows before, during the time that Sarah had been caring for him and occasionally afterward. They had not been this severe, but then he had still been on medication back then. They had still been bad enough to make him withdrawn for several days, occasionally forcing him to resort to lorazepam and sleep. James strongly suspected that this was just a deeper, more pronounced version of the same, and advised that as long as Sherlock continued drinking fluids then they should just leave him to sleep.

After four days at home, Sherlock had apparently appeared bleary-eyed and dazed in the kitchen, absent-mindedly eaten his way through two plates of scrambled eggs on toast, and had grudgingly agreed to talk to James. He wouldn't see a psychiatrist, he told James, and he wouldn't go back on medication, he wanted to manage this in his own way. He wanted to live his life with a mind that functioned fully to his own extraordinary level, not numbed by medication. He agreed to talk to James intermittently, in return for a supply of lorazepam, but that was the full extent of his intended compliance.

There had been intermittent telephone conversations for a while, but James hadn't talked to Sherlock Holmes for nearly six months. He had reluctantly informed Mycroft a couple of months back of his brother's non-communication, and had been told that he seemed to be managing well on his own, and that Mycroft would inform him if the situation changed. Now, it appeared that it had.

Sarah's note had to been brief and to the point. 'I've got Sherlock on the phone in my office,' it said. 'Sounds as if he's in trouble and is asking for help. Can you come and talk to him?'

James stood up, made his apologies, and less than five minutes later was at the door to Sarah's office. A ward sister now, she had excelled at her new role at the Edinburgh clinic, but still insisted on maintaining clinical contact with patients. She could get through to some of the more troubled teenagers in a way that few others could, and the more junior members of staff appreciated her leading by example. She somehow managed to simultaneously be kind, gentle, understanding, and yet at the same time to remain firmly in control. Just as she had with Sherlock, James Harrison recalled.

Sarah had been waiting for his arrival, and beckoned him into the office enthusiastically with her free hand. She was still on the phone, talking quietly, her voice calm and level while her right hand was jotting down frantic notes on a pad of paper, as if the two halves of her brain were entirely disconnected.

As he walked in she slid the pad of paper across to him, as she continued to talk. She was trying to persuade Sherlock to stay where he was, and to let her contact someone to come and get him, he realised.

'Who?,' she had written on the piece of paper at the bottom, with a large circle around it. James Harrison read her notes quickly before getting to that sticky question.

_Sherlock, pub, somewhere near river, The Plough, probably few miles from Cambridge ? where, upset._

_Drugs - heroin, cocaine, speed, benzodiazepines. Out of control, asking for help, scared if goes back to college will use and take too much. Alcohol too, slightly drunk but using it to 'take the edge off'. Cocaine and benzos with him, but not taken yet. Heroin this morning. Not suicidal, not enough drugs with him to cause significant harm._

_Doesnt want brother to know_

_Scared._

_Need to get someone to go and find him - who?_

This last word underlined and circled three times.

James Harrison listened to Sarah's conversation with Sherlock, and indicated for her to hand him the phone. 'Sherlock, James Harrison's just walked into my office,' she said to him, 'will you talk to him?'

'No!' he sounded panicked, 'I can't. He'll - he'll be, I don't know..'

'Angry? Disappointed?' Sarah prompted gently, 'is that really what you think? He won't be Sherlock. It happens, especially in people with bipolar. You try to take things to make yourself feel better, you self-medicate, and sometimes it gets out of control. Its not your fault, nobody is blaming you, but James might be able to help.'

'Okay,' he whispered, and James took the phone from her, sliding her his own note on a piece of paper as he did so.

'Phone Mycroft Holmes,' the note said. 'Tell him to get someone over there to keep Sherlock safe, but that they shouldn't approach him for now or he'll bolt. Someone to watch and wait until he can get there himself to pick him up. Tell him what you have to and no more - that he's in a pub, he'll be able to work out where, he's an intelligent man and he knows the area; that Sherlock is in a mess and he needs picking up and taking somewhere safe.'

Sarah nodded and left the room with the piece of paper in her hand.

'Sherlock, its James Harrison,' he said as he took over the phone. 'Tell me whats been happening.'

There was silence and a little rustling. 'Shaking your head isn't useful on the phone you know,' James Harrison told him. 'Start at the beginning. When did you start using the drugs?'

And as James Harrison talked Sherlock through it, gently, calmly, Sarah was phoning Mycroft Holmes.

He was in a meeting, in her experience he was always in a meeting when you were trying to get hold of him, but the words 'brother,' 'emergency' and her name were enough to obtain his presence on the phone within five minutes.

'I'll send someone to pick him up,' Mycroft said with a sigh, when she had briefly outlined the issue.

'No, Mycroft,' she said firmly, 'not this time. He's out of his depth and he's asking for help. I don't think that he's ever done that before. I'm sorry but I think that you need to go yourself, or there's a good chance that he'll bolt.'

'With respect, Miss Thompson, this isn't the first time that my brother has required bailing out of trouble.'

'True, but its the first time that he's admitted to taking heroin.'

There was a long pause, 'I see,' Mycroft said, obviously rattled. 'Anything else that I should know?'

'Cocaine too and it sounds as if thats only part of it. He's out of control, Mycroft, he needs help, proper help; he wants to stop using and tha'ts an important step. I would advise finding him a rehab place that can take him as soon as possible; today if they can, but you need to go and get him and take him there. He won't take this from anyone else, you know that.''

'My brother and I do not have what you might call an easy relationship, as you are very well aware,' Mycroft said slowly.

'True, but he knows that you care, and he respects you in his own way. If you tell him its his only option then I'm sure that he'll listen to you.'

'And James Harrison can arrange an admission in the interim I imagine.'

'I'm sure that he can. He's on the phone to Sherlock now. Just - get there, Mycroft please, if he leaves that pub then I can't guarantee his safety.'

'I'll arrange for someone to get down there to watch him,' Mycroft was saying.

'If they approach him directly, he might well bolt,' Sarah warned.

'I'll make sure that they're unobtrusive,' Mycroft said as he hung up.


	4. Chapter 4

Walking back to the office, Sarah was relieved to hear James Harrison's level voice talking to Sherlock. He was still there then, still safe, and he hadn't bolted yet. But at some point they were going to have to tell him that Mycroft coming to find him, and how he would deal with that was more difficult to predict.

'Mycroft's on his way,' she wrote on the pad of paper. 'He's sending someone to watch him until he can get there. He wants you to arrange an admission to a rehab facility if you think that it's needed.'

James nodded his head slightly as he continued to concentrate on what Sherlock was saying, and to scribble notes rapidly with his free hand.

'Sherlock, we need to get you somewhere safe,' he said finally, when the conversation seemed to have reached a natural lull. 'Can you think of anyone that I can call, someone that you trust?.'

'There isn't anyone,' he replied dully. 'You know that.'

'Friends at college? Is there anyone that you're close to, that could come and be with you?'

'No,' came the abrupt reply. 'Nobody who I'd want to see me like this.'

Still isolated then, still finding it hard to open up and trust people on anything but the most superficial level; still scarred from his treatment at the hands of his father and the mistrust he had learned at Elmhurst. Sherlock hadn't always been like this, James knew. When he had started prep school, he had been charismatic and mischievous, and had had friends; one or two close ones, who he had plotted and schemed with, and a wider circle of those who admired his sheer ingenuity and the extent of what he seemed able to get away with. As the trouble at home increased he had become more withdrawn, pushing people away, learning from bitter experience that the only person that he could trust, that he could rely on was himself.

Public school had been even harder for him, James was aware. With puberty had come a distrust and a sense of isolation. His friends began to develop an interest in girls. Sherlock himself had reached puberty relatively late and even then, he had failed to understand his fellow pupils' fascination with the female sex, and indeed with sex in general. It held no mystery for him. He understood the biology, he was aware of his own biological urges even, but they were disconnected, and the idea of engaging in the act with a member of the opposite sex held little appeal. Sex would involve closeness, and trust, and physical contact with another human being. Closeness implied trust, trust was difficult, and he associated physical contact only with pain. He couldn't bear to be touched even by his mother anymore, shying away from her attempted hugs, or even her familiar hair ruffle. She had put this down to his age, ignoring, as always, what she would rather not know. Ignoring the bruises, and the days when he would take to his bed after an argument with his father. Easier to deny it than to face the fact that her husband was beating their youngest son.

'Then we're back to Mycroft, aren't we,' James said calmly, wishing not for the first time that he could help Sherlock to unravel what had happened with his father.

Silence from the other end of the phone. 'I don't want him to know,' Sherlock said quietly after several minutes.

'Because you think that he'll judge you? He won't, Sherlock. Mycroft cares a great deal about you. He just wants you to be safe. I can talk to him if you'd rather, or Sarah can.'

James pushed away his feelings of guilt. This felt a lot like lying to Sherlock, this need to pretend that the conversation with Mycroft hadn't already occurred. He and Sarah had breached Sherlock's confidentiality after all, but then he wasn't officailly their patient anymore. He had approached Sarah as a friend primarily, or as something as close as Sherlock came to having a friend. He had gone to her as someone that he trusted, not as a healthcare professional. And yet the golden rule of psychitary still applied. Safety had to come first, and while Sherlock was not overtly suicidal, James shuddered to think what he might do if he walked out of that pub. From his conversation with him he knew that it wasn't that he wanted to die, in that he had no plans to hasten his own demise, rather that he no longer cared what happened to him. The drugs had numbed his emotions to the extent that nonexistence seemed to him like a logical option. And logic with Sherlock was not always a safe option.

'Sherlock, I have to ensure your safety, you know that,' he said gently. 'If you won't let me call Mycroft, then I'll have to call the police. They will either take you to A&E, or to the police cells for a psychiatric assessment. That is the only other option. I would come myself, but I'm too far away, so is Sarah, so if there is nobody else we can call, then it has to be Mycroft.'

'I'm not your patient anymore,' Sherlock said stubbornly, 'You don't have to tell anybody.'

'I'm not doing this because I have to,' James told him, 'I'm doing it because I care about what happens to you. So does Sarah. We both want to get you help, and to make sure that you're safe. I can get you into a rehab place - maybe even today, if not then certainly tomorrow, but somebody needs to get you there safely.'

'You've already phoned him, haven't you,' Sherlock whispered, sounding defeated.

James sighed. His insight was almost frightening, even in this state. 'We had to, Sherlock, I'm sorry. Now you just have to sit tight and wait for him to get there.'

'Where would I go?' Sherlock asked bleakly, his head starting to spin as the alcohol began to finally flood his system. He laid his head onto the table for a second, closed his eyes, wondered what would happen if he allowed himself to sleep.

'Sherlock,' came James' voice from the phone he had dropped onto the table. 'Sherlock, are you still there.'

Wearily he picked the phone up. 'I'm tired,' he said, no longer bothering to stop his words from slurring.

'You need to stay awake,' James Harrison told him. 'Get some coffee, distract yourself, just stay awake until Mycroft gets there. I can keep talking to you for as long as you want me here.'

Sherlock looked up for the first time since he had started his conversation with Sarah nearly an hour ago. There was a man sitting at the only other table in the snug which had a partial view of his table. Early thirties, dark, closely cropped hair already starting to grey at the sides. He was dressed in a way that seemed designed to blend in. Navy blue chinos, pale blue casual shirt, brown lace-up shoes that were well polished, but still showing signs of scuffing through the polish. Scuffed at the toes, heels worn down slightly on the insides. The kind of wear that you got on children's school shoes; because children run in their shoes, and these shoes had also been run in one time too many. There was a carefully mended tear on one leg of the trousers too. Torn climbing over a wire fence perhaps?

The man was studiously studying his paper, or giving a good impression of doing so. Wrong paper, too; The Guardian, while his clothing cried out Telegraph reader, not quite smart enough for The Times.

'Sherlock, are you still there?' James Harrison was asking.

'I'm still here. I think that I've tracked down a source of coffee,' Sherlock said, continuing to stare at the man until he put down his paper and met his gaze. Then he got up, and walking over, sat down in the vacant seat opposite him. 'Do you mind?' he asked nonchalantly, as he slid the unused coffee cup towards himself, poured himself a cup from the cafetiere and tipped in four sachets of sugar. 'You can always get yourself another cup if you want some, or better still get yourself that pint of bitter that you really want.' He paused, giving the man a moment to stare at him in amazement. 'Well, since we're both stuck here until my brother arrives, we might as well wait together,' Sherlock added, trying not to slur his words and failing.

'Greg Lestrade,' the man said, sticking out his hand as his lips twitched upwards into a smile.

'Sherlock Holmes,'Sherlock said, as he took Lestrade's hand and shook it. 'But then you already knew that.'


	5. Chapter 5

Greg Lestrade was not having a good day.

It didn't help that the twins had been awake and vomiting half the night. His suggestion that he should go and sleep in the spare room and leave his wife to cope with the fallout had triggered a tirade of 'you don't understand how tough it is staying at home with three small children,' and had sparked yet another huge argument that had dragged on for hours, even once the twins were cleaned up and fast asleep in their cots.

He had been looking forward to a quiet day of typing up reports and drinking enough coffee to keep himself awake until five o'clock when he could crawl home to bed. What he definitely didn't need was to spend the afternoon babysitting the little brother of some Whitehall bigwig, who had got himself into trouble after sniffing one too many lines of cocaine.

The boy fit the description that he had been given. Tall, skinny, curly black hair badly in need of a cut, better dressed than the average student in trousers and a shirt that had once been white, but was now streaked with mud and grass stains. His shoes though shrieked money. Black, and obviously handmade, Greg had to confess to feeling slightly envious of the shoes. With three children under five at home, he wasn't going to be able to afford handmade shoes anytime soon. He chose a seat from where he could watch the boy and follow him if he decided to leave, watching him as unobtrusively as he could from behind his paper. The boy was talking furiously into a mobile phone. Not many students could afford those, and that one looked to be the latest model. A gift from big brother, no doubt. Greg had been told that the boy was nineteen but he looked much younger. Too young to be sitting in a pub on his own in the middle of the afternoon. He was surprised that the bar staff had served him without ID.

The barmaid brought his coffee over as promised. A cafetiere on a tray, with a small jug of milk, a pot of sugar sachets and one of those ridiculous cellophane-wrapped biscuits that nobody ever ate. The barmaid smiled at him a little too flirtatiously for his liking. He smiled his thanks at her, deliberately shirting the tray slightly with his left hand to ensure that she saw his wedding ring. She shrugged slightly to show that the gesture hadn't been lost on her, but still threw him a little smile over her shoulder as she walked away, murmuring, 'Let me know if you need anything else.' Blimey, they bred them tough in these parts. Where had all the girls like that been when he was eighteen?

Leaving the coffee to brew, he turned to the back page of the paper and stared at the crossword. Cryptic ones always took him forever, but since he could be stuck here for several hours, that might not be a bad thing. The boy looked upset now, he noticed, as he glanced quickly over in his direction under the ruse of digging a pen out from his jacket pocket; head buried in hands, he looked as if he was trying very hard not to cry. Bloody hell what was it with these privileged kids? Born with a silver spoon in their mouths and they still didn't know that they'd got it made. They had to screw up their lives with drink and drugs, and go through hours of therapy because their favourite nanny had run off with the chauffeur when they were three or Mummy didn't love them enough to miss her bridge party. Greg had little patience with them. Try growing up the only boy in a family of five children; not only the fourth child, but constantly having to fight against a tide of pink, and protest to his parents that wearing his sisters' hand me down school shirts, while economical, simply wasn't going to happen. Money and privacy had been short in his family, but love and affection had not. Those were free, and that was what Greg didn't get about these rich families. They ruined their kids by giving them everything that money could buy, and nothing that it couldn't. Time, understanding and affection. Those were what these kids lacked, and that was what, in Greg's experience anyway, turned them into the fucked up little members of society that they often were.

There was a vulnerability in this boy though, for a boy he still appeared to be despite his chronological age. He looked as if he needed a good meal and a good bath. The father in Greg found it oddly difficult watching him sitting there alone, hunched in on himself, talking intermittently into the phone. He wondered who he was talking to. Someone that he trusted, that much was obvious.

Then the boy looked up and caught his eye. Damn. Greg hastily looked down at his crossword, scribbling random words in the margin, hoping that the boy would assume that he had been looking into the distance for inspiration rather than watching him.

The boy was getting up. Was he going to bolt, or was he just going back to the bar? Neither would it appear. The boy casually walked over, sat himself down in the empty chair opposite Greg, and calmly helped himself to the coffee that Greg hadn't got round to drinking yet.

Few people surprised Greg, but Sherlock Holmes looked as if he was going to be one of them. This rapid switch from despair to cool and detached was intriguing. He was obviously setting our deliberately to simultaneously disarm and unsettle Greg, and it was working.

The boy looked even younger close up; dark shadows under his piercing blue eyes, skin too pale and too closely applied to his cheekbones. He looked ill, Greg thought. He had been told little about his charge - only that he was in some trouble and that Greg should stay with him until his brother arrived. If he tried to leave the pub then Greg should engage him in conversation and try to keep him there - using force involving the police officers stationed outside if necessary. When he asked on what basis he should detain him he was told possession of class A drugs, but that he shouldn't charge him, and that there was to be no paper trail or report for this.

Looking at the boy, Greg predicted that he did more than keep the drugs in a packet in his pocket. It was a look that he had seen many times before. There was a fine tremor in his hands that spoke of the need for a fix, and a sheen of sweat on his skin, although the inside of the pub was cool.

'Aren't you going to tell your friend what's going on?' he asked, noticing that the light was still on the mobile phone screen. he caller at the other end was still there.

'I've found someone to distract me,' the boy said into the phone, eyes still fixed on Greg's in a disturbing way, as if daring him to try to reach for his own phone to inform on him.

The boy paused, as he listened. 'No, I'll be fine,' he said. Then with a sigh. 'You know that I won't, I hate phones.' As the voice at the other end became more urgent, he thrust the phone at Lestrade. ' She wants to talk to you,' he said.

Greg took the phone with some reluctance. This really was turning into the most peculiar day. 'Hello?' he said.

'I'm really sorry about this,' came the voice from the other end. Young, female, probably attractive. 'But I need to make sure that Sherlock's safe. Who are you?'

'I'm a police officer. Greg Lestrade.' Greg said.

'Did Mycroft Holmes send you?'

'He organised it, yes.'

'That was fast,' the voice on the other end said. She sounded relieved, Greg thought. 'I'm Sarah Thompson, I used to be Sherlock's CPN. Will you stay with him until Mycroft gets there?'

'Of course,' Greg said, finally losing the staring competition with Sherlock and looking away.

'Don't be fooled by the bluster,' Sarah was saying. 'If he walks out of that pub alone then he's very much at risk. Is he as drunk as he sounds?'

'He's not sober,' Greg said, glancing back at Sherlock, who scowled at him.

'I'm not drunk,' he muttered.

'How many whiskeys have you had?' Greg asked him. 'Four? Five?' Sherlock shrugged. 'Doubles by the look of that last one. And you're slurring. You're definitely drunk.'

Sherlock scowled again.

'Fine,' Greg said. 'Stand on one leg and close your eyes if you're sober.' Then when Sherlock remained seated he turned his attention back to Sarah who was chuckling softly. 'Sounds as if you've got the measure of him,' she said. Good. Now another thing that you should know; he's got drugs on him. I'd rather that he didn't take anything more than he has already, but if he gets really twitchy then he can take a diazepam, just one mind, but don't let him take any more cocaine.'

'Fine,' Greg said crisply. 'Anything else that I should know?'

'He'll convince you that black is white if you give him half a chance,' Sarah said. 'Just don't let him leave the pub. The best way to do that is to keep him talking, keep him interested. He gets bored easily. Try not to let that happen.'

'Thanks for the advice,' Greg said, cursing his DI again. So much for a quiet afternoon. 'Now let me talk to him again for a minute,' Sarah was saying.

Greg handed the phone over. 'I'll be fine,' the boy was saying, more reserved now that he was aware that Greg was listening than he had been earlier. Then, more sharply, 'Why? I told you, I'll be fine,' then to Greg's surprise he got up and went and walked over to the corner of the room, talking softly, his facade suddenly falling. Trying hard not to eavesdrop, Greg waved the barmaid over and asked her to fetch another pot of coffee and another cup. It looked as if Sherlock Holmes was going to need it to sober up before his brother got there. Greg had no reason to want to protect the boy, but somehow he got the impression that his big brother wasn't going to be very impressed if he found him in this state. No need to make things harder for him than they were already.

The boy returned to the table, templed his hands under his chin and said to Greg. 'Sarah says that you'll distract me, so distract me.'

'How would you suggest that I do that?' Greg asked.

'Tell me something interesting.'

'About myself?'

The boy shook his head. 'I don't need you to tell me that,' he said. 'You're what twenty nine?'

'Twenty eight,' Greg said.

'Married for six years; you've got at least two children under five, probably three. Your wife used to work, but now stays at home with the children; well with three children under five, she'd have to. You were up late last night because the children were ill. You had an argument with your wife, and you're wondering if she's worth the hassle, but you won't leave because of the kids. How am I doing?'

'How on earth,' Greg said slowly, 'Did you know that?'

'I worked it out,' the boy said smugly, then frowning. 'The room's spinning. Why is the room spinning?'

Greg reached across and tipped another two sugars into his cup of coffee, then slid it across to him. 'Drink that,' he said. 'And when did you last eat? You look like shit, you know.'

'Day before yesterday maybe?' the boy said, squinting slightly as if he was trying to remember.

'Right. Stay there, drink the coffee and don't move, I'm going to go and order you a sandwich and several pints of water. Then when I come back I'm going to tell you all about being a detective, and if that doesn't distract you then nothing will.'


	6. Chapter 6

When Greg Lestrade got back to the table carrying two packets of crisps and a pint of water, the boy tossed his paper across to him. 'I finished your crossword,' he said.

'Bloody hell,' Greg murmured. He had been away for - what, six or seven minutes? 'How on earth did you manage that?'

The boy shrugged. 'I like puzzles,' he said, as if that explained everything. 'I've been doing cryptic crosswords since I was eight. My mother taught me.'

'I ordered you food,' Greg said, throwing him one of the packet of crisps, 'but eat those while you're waiting will you? I don't want you passing out on me.'

The boy looked at the packet of crisps and wrinkled his nose in distaste. 'Food,' he said vaguely. 'Food's boring.'

'Just stop philosophising and eat them, will you?' Greg told him, taking the packet of crisps from him, opening it and pushing it back into Sherlock's hands in exactly the same way that he would have dealt with his four year old.

To his surprise, it worked. Sherlock slighly sulkily started to eat the crisps.

'You promised to tell me about being a detective,' he said.

'So I did. What do you want to know?'

Sherlock slumped back in his chair, yawned widely and rubbed a hand across his eyes. 'God I'm tired,' he slurred. 'You'd better make it interesting or I won't be able to stay awake for much longer. Can you be a detective without being a policeman first?'

'No,' Greg Lestrade told him, 'You have to start off as a normal copper. Why? Are you interested in it as a career choice?' He tried to keep the surprise out of his voice. He couldn't see it somehow, this posh Cambridge student sitting for hours in a beaten up car outside a tower block waiting for a suspect. He looked as if he needed someone to tie his shoelaces for him. How on earth would he blend into some of the backgrounds that Greg had to pretend to be a part of?

'Not in the traditional sense of the word, no,' Sherlock replied, much to Greg's relief. 'But I told you - I like puzzles. I like the idea of solving things - solving people.'

'Be a cryptographer then,' Greg told him, 'or a scientist. Isn't that what science is all about?'

'You're not listening,' Sherlock told him, fixing him with a look that reminded Greg uncomfortably of his primary school headmistress when he had been caught fighting yet again. 'I like people - well no, actually that's incorrect, I don't like people, but I find them fascinating. What goes on in their tiny lives, how their funny little brains work, what makes them do the things that they do. That's what I want to work with. Not just dull equations, although chemistry is fascinating too, in it's own way.

'What about forensic science?' Greg suggested intrigued. 'That gives you the science and the crime.' And wouldn't require you to communicate with people, he wanted to say, but decided that now was not the time to point out Sherlock's lack of social skills. He hated to think about the effect that he would have on a witness, especially if they were already upset. And if they weren't, then he suspected that they almost certainly would be once Sherlock Holmes had finished with them

'I did a stint in a forensics lab last summer,' Sherlock said, with a dismissive wave of his hand. 'The science is - fascinating, but it's not enough. I don't want to work for somebody else, I want to solve the problems, the crimes, myself.'

'Well you can't do both.'

'Why not?'

'So you want to be a sort of one man detective and forensics expert,' Greg said slowly.

'Why not?' Sherlock retorted, his eyes narrowing as he contemplated Greg's reaction.

He enjoys making people feel uncomfortable, Greg thought, no not uncomfortable exactly, he likes shaking up their world view, making them look at things in a different way.'

'Because that job simply doesn't exist. You can't do both,' he told him.'

'Not in the police force, no, but just because a job doesn't exist doesn't mean that you can't do it,' Sherlock said nonchalantly.

'As what - a private detective? They don't get access to crime scenes and evidence,' The boy couldn't seriously think that this was a career option, surely. Was he really so arrogant that he thought that he could invent his own job?

'I was thinking more of a consultive role. The police do use external consultants don't they? When they need their expertise.'

'Not generally for crime scenes, no,' Greg said with an edge of sarcasm.

'Why not?' Sherlock asked.

'Because - look, it's not all about cryptic crosswords, you know,' Greg said, as the barmaid brought over a huge plate of sandwiches and deposited them in the middle of the table. 'What makes you think that you'd be good at solving crimes anyway?'

'Try me,' Sherlock said.

'What do you mean, 'Try me,''Greg asked, his irritation increasing as he picked up a sandwich and began to eat.

'I mean, tell me about a crime that you've investigated recently, tell me what happened and what you found, and I'll tell you how I would have got you your man.'

'I can't tell you about cases,' Greg spluttered through a mouthful of beef and horseradish.

'Tell me about old ones that have been through the court then,' Sherlock said, shaking his head as Greg pushed the plate of sandwiches across to him.

Greg sighed. 'Okay, I'll do you a deal. You eat, and for each sandwich that you feed into that skinny body of yours, I'll give you one detail about a case.'

'Done,' Sherlock said, as he picked up a sandwich and began to eat.

...

The plate of sandwiches somehow emptied itself, Sherlock eating almost absent mindedly as he quizzed Greg about cold cases, and came up with some astounding theories. Some were astoundingly brilliant, and some astoundingly ridiculous, but Greg had to admit that he was impressed. This boy's brain worked in an entirely different way to the majority of policeman, who plodded along straight lines. Sherlock's brain went off at odd tangents, but eventually, often after several false starts, he worked it out. Greg even threw in a case which they had shelved months ago due to lack of evidence, without letting Sherlock know what it was, and Sherlock came up with an interesting twist on the interpretation of event, which Greg found both plausible and intriguing. He might have to have another look at that case when he got back to work, see if Sherlock's theory fitted.

Sherlock had a partial view of the main bar from where he was sitting, and saw Mycroft's stiff-backed figure walking into the pub before Lestrade did. Greg knew though from Sherlock's reaction. He moved suddenly from his previously slouched and relaxed posture, sitting bolt upright in his chair, almost as if bracing himself for an attack, and Greg turned round slightly to see Mycroft Holmes approaching.

'Sherlock,' he said with a nod. 'I see that you've met Detective Sergeant Lestrade,' but Sherlock just stood up, and picked up his coat.

'Let's go,' he said bluntly, then, walking ahead of Mycroft towards the door as Mycroft briefly paused to shake Lestrade's hand and thank him, he turned and fixing Greg Lestrade with his piercing blue gaze said, 'I could help, you know. You just have to ask,' and then he was gone, leaving Greg Lestrade staring open mouthed after the two Holmes brothers as they walked in silence out of the pub. What a extraordinary pair of characters.

A long, low black Bentley was waiting outside the main door. Wolfson, the family's chauffeur leapt out of his seat to open the door for first Sherlock, and then Mycroft, before getting in himself and driving away, sliding the privacy screen across without being asked to allow the brothers to talk.

'Don't,' Sherlock said bluntly as soon as the car was in motion.

'Don't what?' Mycroft asked, crisply.

'I don't want to hear it, Mycroft. I'm aware that it was a stupid thing to do. I'm aware that you're disappointed in me, and I'm aware that I've let you down - again; now can you just shut the fuck up and let me sleep please?'

They sat in silence for a while, Sherlock closing his eyes and trying to let the smooth swaying of the car lull him to sleep, when Mycroft said quietly. 'You could have phoned me, you know. I would have come to get you.'

'And said what?' Sherlock snapped, eyes open again, 'that I've screwed up again? That I need rescuing - again?'

Mycroft sighed. 'Why is it so impossible for you to believe that I want what is best for you?'

'No, you want what you think is best for me - and for you. There's a difference.'

'Sherlock,' Mycroft said, warningly.

'Fuck off, Mycroft,' Sherlock snapped, 'I'm too tired for a lecture. Just let me sleep, before I say something that I almost certainly won't regret.'

He closed his eyes again, and there was silence, then he heard Mycroft rap on the screen, the murmur of voices, then the car slowed, stopped and Mycroft was getting out of his seat to take up the front passenger seat. He heard the sound of the car boot opening briefly, and then surprisingly his own door opened, and a blanket was placed over him. He realised that he had been shivering inside his coat with the come-down from the early drugs. He opened his eyes in surprise and Wolfson winked at him and handed him a pillow. 'Might as well be comfortable, sir,' he said as he closed the door again.

Gratefully, Sherlock unclipped his seat belt and stretched out on the back seat with the blanket and the pillow, and slept.

After what felt like only a few minutes, he heard the familiar crunch of car tyres on gravel, and scrambled to a seating position as the car came to a stop outside the house. He was surprised. He had assumed that Mycroft would have taken him straight to a rehab facility, not here; but this was better, this was easier.

'It's just for one night,' Mycroft told him bluntly as he stumbled out of the car. 'They won't take you for rehab until you're sober. We'll head over there first thing in the morning. In the meantime, I don't want you leaving your room apart from to go to the bathroom. If you need anything, ring the bell and the servants will bring you what you need. I'll have a tray of food sent up to your room, but I don't want you wandering around the house.'

'Fine,' Sherlock muttered grumpily, as he headed straight up the sweeping main stairs and towards his room.

His room had obviously been made up for him during their journey down. Clean, tidy, with crisp sheets on the bed, cushions artfully arranged on top. He had never seen the point of cushions on beds. That was what pillows were for surely. Cushions, from what he could see, existed only to throw on the floor in the evening, and be picked up again by the maid in the morning. Or occasionally to be thrown at Mycroft's head when he was being particularly annoying.

Without even stopping to remove his shoes, he threw himself onto the bed, suddenly exhausted. He was dimly aware of someone removing his shoes later, and throwing a blanket over him. Mycroft? Surely not. His bedside light was switched on, the main light switched off and he slid back into sleep.


	7. Chapter 7

This chapter is for thedragonaunt for making me stop and consider things from Mycroft's perspective. I don't think that I've ever tried to see the world through his eyes before, and it's been vey illuminating!

Thank you all for reading and reviewing. It means a lot and your comments often make a huge difference to the direction of travel of the stories.

* * *

Mycroft Holmes tapped quietly on the door to Sherlock's room, and then when there was no reply, opened the door and let himself in.

His brother was lying on the bed fully clothed, as if he had stood at the end of the bed and fallen headlong onto it, which, Mycroft reflected, may well have been exactly what had happened. He stood for a moment and listened to Sherlock's quiet and regular breathing. Had he overdosed? It was possible, but unlikely. The statistical probability was that his brother was simply exhausted from the events of the day, and had fallen into a deep sleep, from which he showed no signs of waking any time soon.

Sighing, Mycroft gently removed Sherlock's shoes; handmade, as DS Lestrade had so accurately deduced, obtained from their father's favourite shoe-makers on Jermyn Street. Both Sherlock and he had an account there, paid for by the estate. At least Sherlock would always be well dressed, even if Mycroft did keep him on a tight leash financially for everything else, for obvious reasons.

Mycroft frowned for a moment as he considered. He had arranged for Sherlock to have a small allowance; he paid his college battels bills - which included three meals a day. He was aware that Sherlock rarely if ever ate three meals a day, but still, it meant that the option was there on the rare occasions that he remembered to eat. He also paid his 'bedder', the housekeeper come cleaner who both cleaned the rooms and checked on the welfare of students, to ensure that he always had a supply of food in his room and that his sheets and towels were changed regularly, both duties outside those usually provided for students by the college. Because Sherlock, as Mycroft was well aware, had no interest in either providing himself with food, or in ensuring that he lived in clean or hygienic surroundings, if left to his own devices. Meticulous as he was with his own appearance, Sherlock had an almost child-like naivety when it came to the necessities of life. In his first term, the bedder, who Mycroft had slipped a substantial quantity of cash to when he had dropped Sherlock and his belongings off at college, had contacted Mycroft to inform him that the pile of Sherlock's unwashed clothes on the floor was growing by the day, and that when she had offered to give him a guided tour of the college's laundry, Sherlock had just looked at her blankly and returned to his textbooks.

With a sigh, Mycroft had thanked her for informing him, and had arranged an additional sum to be paid to her for ensuring that Sherlock's laundry was done, and that his shirts were ironed and placed back in his wardrobe. In their Great-Grandfather's day, Sherlock would have gone up to Cambridge accompanied by a valet, who would have assumed all of these responsibilities. In this day and age, students were expected to look after themselves, but Sherlock simply removed himself from the mundanities of life. It wasn't that he was unable to look after himself, it was that he was unwilling to do so. His priorities were chemistry and solving puzzles, not providing himself with food and clothing. And now drugs, it would appear, were a priority also.

Mycroft had not provided Sherlock with sufficient funds to obtain the sort of habit that he had confessed to James Harrison. Which meant that he must have obtained the money from other means. During the annual counting of the family silver for insurance purposes only a few weeks ago, the housekeeper had reported to Mycroft that several pieces were missing. Mycroft had suggested a few stern words with the staff, and a four week amnesty period, in which the missing places could be replaced by the offender without further retribution. It appeared that he should have looked closer to home for the culprit. If Sherlock had resorted to stealing the family silver, a cliche if ever there was one, then what else had he resorted to in order to fund his habit?

Watching his younger brother sleep, Mycroft felt both anger and guilt. Entirely illogically, he believed that he should have been able to prevent this. Infuriating as Sherlock could be, he was still Mycroft's responsibility; he was still his brother, and with both of their parents gone, he was all the family that he had left. And this was something that Mycroft had been warned about, after Sherlock's discharge from Elmhurst. Both James Harrison and Sarah had warned him of the risks of Sherlock attempting to self-medicate in order to reclaim control of his illness, and yet somehow Mycroft had missed the signs. And now, Sherlock had fallen into addiction in a way that not even he could have imagined. His brother was intelligent, brilliant even, so how had he allowed himself to be sucked into this cycle of destruction?

In his brief telephone conversation with him in the car on the way up to Cambridge, James Harrison had warned him not to judge Sherlock, not to chastise him, not in fact to be anything other than supportive and understanding. A challenge in itself, and a personality switch that Sherlock was likely to see through in seconds.

Mycroft had not been ready to become a parent to a disturbed teenager at the age of twenty three; at twenty seven, despite four years of practice, he felt no more prepared to deal with this than he had back then. But Sherlock was his brother, and he was important, of that Mycroft was sure. He had to do what was necessary to keep him safe, irrespective of Sherlock's own wishes. Because Sherlock's own wishes, once he sobered up, James Harrison had gravely informed him, would be to fuel his addiction and his cravings all over again.

'It is an illness, Mycroft,' he had informed him, gravely. 'As much as the bipolar is, partly because of the bipolar, in fact. He is not in control of his own actions, and if the depression and the self-loathing that will undoubtably result from, this go the way that I predict that they will, then he will be in serious danger. You need to get him to rehab and to keep him there. If he refuses, have him sectioned, if that is what it takes, although that would be better avoided if possible.'

Mycroft sighed again, as he pulled a blanket off the chair in the corner and laid it over Sherlock's sleeping form. The nights were still cold for May, and the old house was never warm, even in the heat of summer. Sherlock stirred slightly in his sleep, but did not wake, and Mycroft could do little more than making sure that there was a full glass of water beside his bed before retreating to his own room, anticipating the battle to come.


	8. Chapter 8

Thirst woke him shortly before dawn. He emptied the glass of water that had been left next to his bed, then stumbled to the tap and drained glass after glass until he had had his fill. Returning to sit on his bed, he contemplated his situation.

He had agreed with James Harrison yesterday that he needed help, that this was as much of a danger time to him as the episodes of depression that had plagued him since his discharge from Elmhurst. James had suggested a clinic in Surrey, had said that he would talk to the director there and organise an admission, and Sherlock had reluctantly agreed. 'No medication though,' he had said, 'I'm not going back on medication.'

'First things first,' James had told him. 'We need to get you detoxed and safe. You can discuss the rest with the staff at the clinic later.'

But now he felt trapped, just as he had done in his rooms at college. The walls were too close, threatening to close in on him. A quick rifle through his bedside drawer revealed that someone - under Mycroft's instructions no doubt, had removed his last remaining strip of lorazepam. He went through his trouser pockets, but the contents of those had been removed too. Damn Mycroft and his need to control him.

Quietly, so as not to risk disturbing Mycroft who had a room at the opposite end of the corridor, and carrying his shoes in his hand, he padded in his socks out of his door, wincing at the quiet squeak of the hinges and towards the door in the corridor that divided the area with his room in it, from that containing Mycroft's, and the rooms that had been his parents.

He turned the handle as quietly as he could. He would have to walk past Mycroft's room to get to the stairs, and he didn't want to risk waking him. The handle turned silently, but the door failed to open. Twisting the handle with a little more force, he realised that the door was locked. Damn Mycroft again. He had locked him in? How dare he. He was tempted to throw his shoe through the glass door, but as it was unlikely that Mycroft had left the key on the other side, there seemed little to gain from this. While he could probably climb through the half glazed partition, the chances of cutting himself were high, and while the pain was irrelevant to him, he couldn't face the blood, or the inevitable fuss that would ensue.

Instead he banged with the flat of his hand on the glass door. 'Mycroft! Let me out!'

He continued to shout and bang until Mycroft's door finally opened, and his brother came to the door, tying the cord of his dressing gown. The top half door was made of a mosaic of pieces of stained glass, dating back to the 1920's, another reason that Sherlock had been reluctant to smash it, so that Mycroft appeared only in parts, through the transparent pieces of glass. It gave him an odd disjointed appearance, which fitted in with Sherlock's slightly blurred state of perception perfectly.

'It is five o'clock in the morning, Sherlock,' he said wearily. 'Go back to bed.'

'You locked me in?' Sherlock said in disbelief, no longer caring who he woke. 'How could you? I need to get out. I need to get outside. I can't breathe in here.'

'I locked you in for your own safety,' Mycroft told him calmly from behind the door.

'And the lorazepam and the diazepam, did you take those away for my own safety too?'

'Of course,' Mycroft replied, still looking unruffled. 'Now go back to bed, we'll discuss this in the morning.'

'Mycroft if you don't let me out, then I swear I'll smash this door, or I'll climb out of the window.'

'Good luck with that,' Mycroft said, as he turned and returned to his room.

Exasperated, Sherlock returned to his own room, and went to raise the sash windows. Locked, of course. The window in the corridor was locked too. Defeated he sank down on his bed, trembling and shaking as the withdrawal from the drugs started to kick in. He was panicking, he knew it, and there was only one thing that could make this better.

He picked up his phone, and pressed the button to dial.

'Please,' he whispered, when Mycroft finally picked up the phone 'You don't understand. I need something, Mycroft, to stop me withdrawing. I'm not going to run away, I swear, but you don't know what it's like. It feels as if all of my nerve endings are on fire. I'm going to lose it Mycroft, I can't control this, I can't stop it, I...'

His door opened, and there was Mycroft, offering up the strip of lorazepam. With shaking hands he took the tablets from Mycroft, pressed three out from the foil strip and swallowed them. The relief was almost instantaneous, even though the drugs couldn't possible have reached his blood stream yet, still, the panic was still receding. 'Now let me go outside,' he mumbled.

'Give me five minutes to get dressed, Mycroft said, 'and I'll come with you.'

Sherlock looked up sharply. 'Don't trust me?' he asked.

Mycroft sighed. 'I just thought that you might like a little company, that's all,' he said.

Less than ten minutes later, Mycroft was letting them both out of the kitchen door. It was just getting light, the dew on the grass still wet, and while it promised to be another sunny day, there was a chill in the air, and Sherlock was glad for the jumper that Mycroft had thrown at him as they walked down the stairs. He shivered a little despite it, and noticed Mycroft's concerned glance. He knew what Mycroft was thinking, almost as transparently as if he could read his mind. 'Thin, too thin, no wonder he's cold,' but Mycroft did not say it, instead he remained thankfully silent as they walked away from the house.

'Here?' Mycroft asked, indicating a bench in a corner of the main lawn.

Sherlock nodded and sat down, filling his lungs with the cold air, instantly feeling better for being outside the house.

'I'm not angry,' Mycroft said quietly, shooting a quick look at his little brother - just..'

'Disappointed?' Sherlock asked bitterly.

'Yes, but not with you,' Mycroft said.

'You think that you're responsible?' Sherlock asked incredulously. 'This was my doing Mycroft, nobody else's.'

'I am told that it is a symptom of your illness,' Mycroft said. 'One that I had been warned about, one that I had watched for early signs of. I missed them, so for that reason, yes, | am disappointed with myself.'

Sherlock sighed, lent back against the back of the bench and closed his eyes. 'It is my life, Mycroft, you can't lead it for me.'

'No,' Mycroft said quietly, 'but I am sorry, nonetheless.'

'As am I, Sherlock replied.

They sat there in silence for a long while, as the sky turned from pink to blue, and the sun slowly became visible from behind the summer house at the end of the garden.

'I'm scared,' Sherlock said quietly, then turned to look at Mycroft, to assess his brother's reaction to this rare display of emotion.

'I know,' Mycroft replied calmly. 'But you know what you have to do.'

'And if I can't do it?' Sherlock asked, looking straight ahead across the garden.

'You can do it,' Mycroft told him. The question is - will you.'

'Are you going to give me a choice?'

'I could lie,' Mycroft said.

'But you won't.'

'No, I won't,' Mycroft said, leaving the implied meaning heavy in the air.

'So when do I have to go?' Sherlock asked.

'This morning, straight after breakfast, I thought. The sooner, the better.'

'Couldn't I just..' Sherlock broke off, knowing that there was little point in protesting. He had laid his cards on the table yesterday, to both Sarah and James Harrison, because he had wanted help. Now he just wanted to be left alone, to deal with this in his own way, to go and get the only thing that could possibly make this better, and he knew that Mycroft would never allow that. He was trapped, he had allowed himself to become trapped.

He could run, that was still an option. He had the element of surprise on his side, he could get to the woods at the side of the garden, then through, to the road at the edge of the estate, hitch a lift, get away, get what he needed, what his body craved.

'This will destroy you, Sherlock, if you allow it to,' Mycroft told him, and Sherlock was grateful for his logical, dispassionate tone.

'I know,' Sherlock mumbled, then again more quietly, 'I do know that Mycroft.'

'And yet - still,' Mycroft said.

Sherlock looked at him sharply. 'It isn't logical, Mycroft, I never said that it was logical.'

'Then explain it to me.'

Sherlock considered for a moment trying to do exactly that, to explain to Mycroft - not the need, the craving so much, as the ritual. The delicious anticipation that came before a hit that every addict knows. The anticipation, the ritual of obtaining, of planning, of preparing was almost as important as the hit itself. Almost. But the drug itself - ah that was something else entirely. For Sherlock, drugs offered him one of two things; the mechanism by which he could shut outside world, either by sharpening his perception with cocaine, narrowing his world to a perfect prism of light, removing external distractions, giving him perfect focus, sharpening his senses, giving him greater clarity than he ever had when sober; or the slow blur of diazepam, numbing the pain of external stimuli, making the world softer, gentler, easier to cope with. And then there was the heroin, the beautiful white smoke which led to perfect oblivion - which wrapped him in it's soft white blanket, and shut off - everything, perfectly and beautifully. Somehow in that moment of ecstasy, he always wished that it could be forever. That this beautiful peaceful sleep could be the last one, that he could slip into it's warm arms and never wake up.

Death no longer scared him, life did. Life was painful, jagged, it caused pain and damage, and he had had enough of it. Stopping the drugs would cause more pain, more damage, and without the drugs to ease him through the days, then what was there?

But he could explain none of this to Mycroft. 'I can't,' was all that he could say.

'You've got through this before,' Mycroft said calmly, as if he was trying to talk Sherlock into his first day at school or swimming his first length of the swimming pool.

'Not without drugs,' Sherlock said heavily.

'I won't let you destroy yourself,' Mycroft said, without looking at him.

And Sherlock felt - not angry, as he had expected to, but somehow safe, so safe, because he knew that it was true. That whatever he wanted, whatever his body was telling him, whatever his mind wanted him to do, Mycroft would always do what was logical, what was right.

He wanted to tell Mycroft that he knew, that he depended on that, but he didn't trust his voice not to crack. So he simply nodded, and stood to walk back to the house, Mycroft walking beside him, as he always did.

* * *

I read a post on tumblr recently about the dangers of glamourising drugs in the fandom, and I hope, beyond all else, that I haven't done that. So just to be clear, and at the risk of sounding a little preachy; drugs destroy lives, drugs kill, I have seen drugs kill. And the only thing worse than having to walk into a room and explain to a parent that their twenty-something or thirty-something child is dead, or is dying because of their addiction, is knowing that you watched that same addict walk out of the door six months previously, having refused help, and that there was absolutely nothing that you could do to stop them.

So there you go - not glamorous, not clever, and it destroys not only the life of the addict, but also the lives of their family and friends. I don't believe for a second that Sherlock could have done the things that he did if he was still an addict, but the fact that he has that in his past shows that even the most brilliant and intelligent among us can still become addicts. And each and every addict will tell you that in the beginning they were sure that it was within their control, and in the end it never is.

So this story is dedicated to all those amazing individuals who work for community drug and alcohol services. You do an amazing job. You deal with people who others often find infuriating, and who are almost impossible to help. But despite this, you somehow manage to see past all of that, and sometimes, just sometimes you manage to rescue the person inside.


End file.
